By Chris Maughan, Agroecology Now!
This post explores rapid rise to prominence of the term ‘Innovation’ within agricultural development, and presents some reasons why it is an inadequate framework to address the deep injustices in contemporary food systems, especially as they relate to family farmers and other small scale food producers.
By Helen Breewood, Food Climate Research Network
Should food be grown in cities? If so, how? These questions have a long history, with the last few hundred years taking in the Garden City movement where towns were designed to include homes, industry and agriculture, the ‘Victory Gardens’ of the First and Second World Wars and, more recently, the food miles debate.
By Matthew D. Moran, The Conversation
Today some 500,000 bison have been restored in over 6,000 locations, including public lands, private ranches and Native American lands. As they return, researchers like me are gaining insights into their substantial ecological and conservation value.
By Lackan Farm staff, Permaculture Association
Lackan Cottage Farm is the product of permaculture design, which can be seen in everything from our natural building products, to our waste and water treatment, energy production, and food growing. It is constantly evolving and growing with our own permaculture experience.
By Lisa Waterman Gray, Food Tank
The organization’s Native American Seed Request program distributes up to 10 free or low-cost traditional seed packets, annually, among individual Southwest Native Americans, and regional tribe members who live elsewhere.
By Nimet Kirac, Shareable
Explaining the many barriers former sex workers, abuse victims, and the homeless face at getting a fresh start in life, Tükrükçü says her personal experiences helped her understand that what is needed most to build a new life is skills.
By Alicia Miller, Sustainable Food Trust
Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Michael Gove’s repeat appearance this year for the 10thanniversary of the Oxford Real Farming Conference, makes a bold statement about the conference’s rising profile – like it or not, it is entering the mainstream, carrying its weight against the long-standing Oxford Farming Conference.
By Vivien Sansour, Oxford Real Farming Conference
In 2014, I founded the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. The Library and associated El Beir Arts and Seeds symbolize this core belief: that agriculture is truly comprised of both “agri” (traditional farming practices) + “culture” (the associated lifestyle/livelihood traditions essential to a community’s identity).
By Brian Miller, South Roane Agrarian
Here are 10 books from the past year (numbered by chronology, not preference) that meant the most to me. Books that took me out of my small world, connected me to the broader course of humanity, and made me glad to have had the experience.
By Lopamudra Patnaik Saxena, The Conversation
In new research, my colleague and I have mapped the growth of social supermarkets and found that while they help support people who are struggling, they do little to challenge the inequalities in the food system.